Yama Snippets
by beenworkingonacoktail
Summary: A series of connected drabbles and one-shots on Kurogane and Fai's six-month stay in Yama. Could be considered a multi-chaptered fic. Implies potential, in-a-year-from-now Kurogane x Fai.
1. Prologue

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 207 (and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13 (for now)  
**Genre**: General  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yamaf  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Summary/Excerpt**: This is the prologue for something like a multichaptered fic dealing with a few mundane, everyday things that Kurogane and Fai might have got up to during their stay in Yama. Better said, a group of little Yama-fics all rolled into one, connected and chronological to boot ^^

* * *

Yama is difficult and easy. There are no words between them; and, while they do not need the conversation, living together in one place is nothing but a trial without it. But then, there are no _words_ between them, and so there are no questions to be asked, no answers to be hidden. There are no other worries except staying alive and working for their living. Apart from this, they wait.

Yama is frustrating and time-consuming; they need to learn how to be patient, with each other, with themselves. They both learn many things, in time, like fitting in this world and grappling with each other. Slowly, unthinkingly, Kurogane learns all of Fai's smiles and gestures and Fai learns Kurogane's silences and looks. They get used to each other, their presence, their place and role in battle; in everything they do. Against all odds, they suit each other well, and the people they fight with see this and rarely think of one without the other.

Yama is loud and silent, and it brings them together through necessity. Yama puts all questions and doubts on hold. Yama makes them find out how well they can work together.

Yama only lasts for six months.


	2. Chapter 1

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 1428 (1636 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; you could say this chapter has a bit more action  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Summary/Notes**: First chapter, in which Fai and Kurogane reach Yama and meet the Yasha clan. We're not shown how that happens in the manga, but I assume they were transported to the same place as Syaoran and Sakura were (meaning the castle in the sky). Theoretically they could have got there during the "day", between battles, but we don't know whether the castle is accessible during the day, or if it even exists (I seem to remember Ashura-ou mentioning that the castle only appears at night, but I could be wrong, or he could have been referring to the transportation to the castle itself).

The one flashback we get of them at the time is of them standing peacefully in their Shara clothes, figuring out that Mokona is out of range and that's why they can't understand each other, but I didn't take that literally, instead thinking of it as a representation of their 'plight' that Fai was trying to put across to the children at the time. Maybe he wanted to gloss over the horrid details, yes?

* * *

When the smoke clears, the world is barren and Kurogane knows they've skipped to yet another country. The kids are nowhere to be seen again – instead, there are hundreds of men fighting each other in the dead of night, not very far away.

Some garbled sounds come from his left and Kurogane wants to groan because _the mage doesn't make sense_.

"What?" he bites off, more of a test than anything, and when Fai turns his way, frowning and concerned, Kurogane mutters a curse. _The meat-bun isn't close enough _he has the time to think, and then the soldiers notice them; swords and spears are thrust their way, and there is nothing left but to fight back.

He draws Souhi with ease and faces his opponents, two blond men, heavy built and weighed down by their armour; they aren't too much of a trial, but more keep coming, one after the other, and never seem to stop. A little to his right now, the mage ducks and twists in his way, using a stolen sword to block the strikes that many dark-haired men throw at him.

Kurogane grins, slashing and tearing, and in a little while he clears a path. The mage meets him halfway and they stand back to back; the men around them stare, confused. Then they start the attack again, blond men to him, the others to the mage, fighting among each other too, and Kurogane finds that strange – and then there is a light, and thick smoke rises (_what, again?_) and when everything settles there are trees all around and mountains in the distance, and only black-haired men are left.

Sword still held up, he shifts his stance and readies one of his attacks; the men level axes and spears at them, and he waits for a question that won't make any sense – and almost falters from the strain when he _does_ hear the words. The dialect is strange and old, and most of everything seems to break off in the wrong place, but he can _understand._ He can't believe their luck.

"We're not your enemies," he says, keeping it clear and simple; Souhi is at the ready, ki gathering and held in check.

"Why fight us, then?"

"How came you to the moon castle?"

"Why is that one so fair of face?"

"Why did you fight together, if you're not one of them?"

"How come we do not know your face, if you are one of ours?"

The questions pour down on and on, each answer drawing out another, so that two minutes in they are still held at spear-point, and Souhi is still drawn and ready; but they are also still unharmed, and that's a good thing in its own.

"He doesn't know the language," Kurogane says when they decide to focus on the mage, and this causes an uproar. Fai smiles benignly back at them, eyes wary and his shoulders tense, and when the men seem bent on starting off the stream questions once again, Kurogane decides he's had enough.

"_Bottom line!_" he shouts back. "We're not your enemies! We've never seen you _or_ the other guys before, and we're just _passing though_! Let us go on our way, and we'll start looking for our friends and then get away from this place for good!"

Spears still levelled, the men start trading glances while the things they ride keep pacing in one place; Kurogane's arms begin to ache. Then, finally, the lines part to make room for what could be the leader. The man is tall and wide, dark hair bound at his nape, and he looks at them with a wary eye.

Kurogane growls under his breath.

"We cannot let you pass," the man begins, raising a pacifying hand at Kurogane's growing frown. "We do not know you, wherever you may come from, and we cannot, in all faith, let you roam free among our people. And while _you_ may not look to be of the Ashura clan," he points at each of them in turn, "_that one_ does; and as, if we are to believe you, he does not know our language, we cannot question him."

Kurogane wants to lash out, knock most of the men down, head for the trees and worry about clans and countries later; but then the leader makes a sign for the spears to be lowered and they are put away, grudgingly so.

"However," the man adds, "we will not harm you, either." _Not yet _hangs in the air, and Kurogane doesn't budge. "For now, you will walk with us, under our guard and our protection, and in the coming hours we will decide what should be done."

He finishes his little speech with a curt nod, and Kurogane deigns to scowl at him for a while longer. At length, he lowers his sword in one slow move, sheathing it carefully. The leader turns away at that, and Kurogane watches with narrowed eyes as a group of eight men lead their mounts to surround them, pausing expectantly. When they reach for their swords again, he grabs Fai's arm with a curt huff and follows in the others' tracks.

They head towards a settlement, towards the precious people they couldn't be allowed to meet, and Kurogane wonders just how long they will have to wait before things start moving again. Beside him, the mage walks with the same wary look, eyes darting here and there, taking everything in.

And Kurogane's arms still ache.

They're not led to a dungeon, much to his surprise. Instead, it's an open entrapment with wooden posts and nets, and one guard at each corner; it looks much like a sheep-pen, and Kurogane snorts in disbelief. With this much leniency, the men had might as well have set them free – the guards wouldn't hold them, much less the sentries watching them not so covertly from twenty yards away. But, he remembers, they have no other place to go, and can't afford wandering off on the odd chance that the kids (_and that meat bun!_) will come this way as well.

What's more, the holding pen is laughable when compared to these men's general look, and even, Kurogane grants, to the look of their might-be leader. No man in his right mind would leave them so unguarded – which means that they _are_ being watched, _carefully_, and everything they do or say could win or lose them points.

_Fine_, Kurogane thinks, seating himself against one of the posts. He crosses his legs and sets Souhi beside him (_they had even left him his sword_) looking on straight ahead - and, incidentally, towards the mage.

The mage, who still hasn't wiped off his little frown, and looks as if he's grasping at straws every which way but grabbing hold of none. Kurogane can't even begin to explain what's happened (not that it's all too clear to him, or that there's all that much to tell) and he half-sighs, half-groans, annoyed.

Fai looks his way at that, drinking up every detail, and Kurogane really hopes the meat bun will be along soon.

xxxxx

They've been kept in the pen for five straight days. Kurogane tries to explain something to him at first, but after several frustrated tries he gives up with a scowl and (probably) a curse.

Fai's eyebrows itch from all the confused frowning. The lack of… everything begins to get under his skin.

There is _nothing _to do. The men ask nothing of them, only deliver food and water in two short stops each day, ignoring them completely; Kurogane just sits there, and Fai is slowly going crazy because _he doesn't know what's going on_, and how can Kurogane just _sit there _and _not say a word_? (not that Fai would have understood it, but at least he would have had something to focus on) It must be a contest of patience, one he knows that he's losing, because it's already a struggle not to walk around the pen each day. He doesn't move though, doesn't let it show.

He also hasn't said a single word since they'd arrived.

He knows one thing: something takes place at night, something magic-related – he can feel the air crackling with it as the moon rises, and there is something in the sky that pulses, writhes and keens. But there is nothing else, and Fai waits for some answers because waiting is all that he can do, and, after all, what he's done best for all these years.

* * *

**More notes/begging**: This chapter is probably the first I ever wrote of the fic, which means it was written about ten months ago. Since then I've tweaked and nudged and changed the wording and the pacing so many times that I have no idea if it's any good. Everything about it bothers me, but I also have a niggling feeling that it's not all that bad, and therefore I shouldn't go through the ordeal of writing it from scratch. So. Please tell me what you think about it, character-wise and wording-wise and general-writing wise, or just say whether it bothers you or not, because it's driving me crazy. Thanks.


	3. Chapter 2

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 1092 (2728 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; things start moving, a bit  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Summary/Notes**: We're not shown Yasha's land at all in the Yama/Shara arc, but we do see Ashura's castle/citadel, and it is identical to RG Veda's Ashura-jou (or Zenmi-jou, as one is the reflection of the other, with Ashura-jou being underground… anyway…), which means that TRC's Ashura rules over a land identical to RG Veda's Ashura, which leads me to think that it would be the same for Yasha.

What we see of Yasha's people in RG Veda is that they're potentially nomadic, living in elaborate tents (the larger of which, for the nobility/assemblies, being raised on stone pillars, with stone steps leading to some of them, and pillows/mattresses on the floor), near to/in the middle of a forest, in a mountainous region. You can see what I mean in a nice (not so) little flashback Yasha has in RG Veda, here: http : / / www. mangafox. com/ manga/ rg_veda /v06 / c000 /80 .html (the flashback lasts for about 30 pages ^^; one very good example is here, if you'd rather not browse: http: / / www. mangafox. com/ manga/ rg_veda / v06 / c000 /95. html )

I've tried to make use of the little we know, and until now the details have definitely been lacking in the fic, but I think it might help if you had some visual of what I think Yasha's lands might have looked like. So. Yeah.

* * *

Their eyes turn black on the sixth day.

Kurogane spots this when he looks at the mage too long at the end of yet another quiet hour, watching him as he stares emptily on. At first he thinks his eyes are only shadowed but Fai blinks toward him at the long attention and Kurogane frowns. When he makes his way over to the mage, crouching before him, his eyes widen; Fai's eyes do just the same.

"Your eyes are black," he says needlessly, voice scratchy from disuse, and he points at the mage's face. Fai points back at him, pressing his hand under one of his eyes at the same time, and Kurogane blinks, then nods. Fai frowns and looks around. He waves his hand between them at eye-level then points at the men in the distance, then motions between them again.

All the people they've seen here have jet-black eyes, but Kurogane can't tell what this means or what, in fact, the mage is saying; he shakes his head and shrugs, and Fai sighs in frustration.

Kurogane sits beside him, closing his eyes in wait, and before the day ends they get some word at last.

Six guards come by to round them up, leaving their hands unbound and Souhi resting against Kurogane's hip (he still can't decide whether these people are stupid, overconfident, or better at stealth than he's ever dreamt) They're brought to a large tent, raised on stone pillars, lit by fires, and several people inside turn round as they're led in. The man in charge, the same one from the week before, practically radiates mistrust, and so does everybody else.

Kurogane knows he can knock the lot of them out if he just reaches for his sword, but they cannot afford to leave this place in case the children do come by, so he stands still and watches the men glare.

They start questioning them once again, or rather only him; the people not speaking stare at the mage instead, looking for some reaction to their words.

The questions sound off like before – who they are, how they got there, what their plans are and why – and Kurogane doles out the same answers. He doesn't speak about the feathers or of the different worlds, but he does mention travels, a boy, a girl and a white pet, and a strange, unknown power that'd brought them there that night, wherever _there_ had been. His own questions are thoroughly ignored, to his barely reigned in annoyance, and before they're sent back each of the men comes by to stare deep in their eyes, always taking twice as long with the mage.

The same six guards escort them to the pen, but Souhi still isn't taken away, their hands still aren't bound, and nobody had spoken about executions, so Kurogane waits for the next day with little worries, or at least no more than before.

There is still no sign of the children, and that begins to bother him.

xxxx

Their eyes turn black on the sixth day, and Fai has many questions but no real way to ask them. His frustration has lessened now that he's got used to the silence and the words he can't understand, and with these people finally making a move he has something to focus on so that his thoughts don't stray.

Their eyes could have changed colour from something in the food, he thinks, or in the water, or the air. Or maybe from the faint magic that he can sense each night. He doesn't feel different himself, or weak in any way, so he tries not to mind the change; not if it helps these people trust them.

For the past three days they've been brought before the clan, and while several faces are the same, most of them are new every time. He thinks they're being shown off to the people, and every man steps up to look them in the eye. He doesn't know what they ask Kurogane, but after three such days he thinks the question that he hears are on the whole the same, judging from the sound and the shape of them, and the mounting annoyance he sees in Kurogane's face. Which means their answers, too, are brought before the people.

He thinks there are debates after the guards take away, that their fate is decided, and Fai tries to stomp on his restlessness at there being so little he can do or know.

His face is blank each time he goes into the tent, his eyes are cold and sharp, and he watches the ones who are there every time, trying to glimpse their thoughts just as they try to read his own. When they come near to stare he looks them in the eye, and every one of them searches for something in his face; he doesn't dare shift his expression – and this is why he never speaks – who knows what they might think to find, or hear; who knows what they might do.

xxxx

They are questioned for five straight days.

On the fifth day, when their patience is close to snapping, when Kurogane wants to break out, all waiting be damned, when Fai is brimming with pent up unease, on that day they are asked to join the people's ranks.

Kurogane explains it all with a lot of frustration and many useless signs while everyone looks on, hands steady on their swords.

From all his words, careful and slow, and making not one bit of sense, Fai only understands _Celes_, _Yasha_, and Kurogane pointing at his sword. It dawns on him, after a while, and Fai bows down like he's seen the men here do, like Kurogane almost hadn't, knee down and hand on chest, and swears out his allegiance.

The words he speaks are meaningless, doubly so for not being understood.

They are given their own quarters, weapons and gear to arm themselves. The armour is heavy and awkward – Fai does away with most of it while Kurogane frowns, not that he's any better, keeping so little for himself.

The first battle has him discarding even more – he cannot _move_ with it – and Kurogane shouts at him while busy knocking men away. Fai doesn't care.

The world twists and skews every night, and in spite of the senselessness of each word spoken around him, Fai tries not to go with it. He clings to every sun-lit day, and waits and waits and _waits_ – but at least now he's not waiting alone.

* * *

**A/N 2**: Once again, please hit me around the head with a blunt object if this sounds scratchy/annoying/ooc in any way. Like I said before, straight and simple narration of facts doesn't come all that easy to me, and having almost no dialogue whatsoever is no help at all. Thanks~!


	4. Chapter 3

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 498 (3226 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; erk, action this time? Maybe?  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Notes:** As future 'chapters' are probably going to be around this length (this might turn into a series of drabbles, though I really hope it won't; oh well, snippets, right?) I'm pushing the updates (and myself) to once every three days *cue evil laugh* Sigh.

***

It takes them ten long days to gain the people's trust, and ten days more to climb the ranks enough to fight in the first lines.

At first Fai keeps a half-eye poised toward the centre of the battle, looking out for a trace of the presence he knows so well, of the spells he's been taught. A part of him is ready every night to see Ashura's face again, even if the person is different. The soul is still the same, he knows, and maybe so will be the eyes, the smile, and Fai hopes he can hide the shock if it turns out that way (Kurogane can't ask him anything in here, and that is fine, but Fai can read the questions in his eyes, and he doesn't want to give way to more (he doesn't understand why Kurogane even cares, doesn't _like_ that he cares, because of what Fai knows and what he'll have to do)).

On the 21st day, when they finally meet, this Ashura is nothing like his king except for the dark hair (_why dark? Aren't Ashura's men light-haired?_) and while Fai stares, relieved and strangely disappointed (_they're not alike, they're not alike at all; he isn't even _human) Kurogane charges – and suddenly the other king is no longer important.

An offshoot of Ashura's strike (_not alike, not alike_) brushes against Kurogane's left side and shoulder, not close enough to kill or maim but still enough to scorch, and until the night ends Fai rides in circles round him, keeping most of the clan away. The few that do get by (their enemies single them out, their 'allies' do not care) are no match for the ninja, even with his new wounds – but Fai will take no chances, and when the moon reaches zenith at last a weight flies from his shoulders.

He rushes Kurogane to the medic when the man heads straight for their tent, watches the burns be washed and bandages be readied. He leaves before the healer finishes his task, with Kurogane's grumbles ringing in his ears.

They have nothing in this world, he remembers. There may be no way out. And this is _Kurogane_, and Fai does want to help.

Half an hour later he returns with an ointment he's pretty sure will do nothing at all, hopes it will do no harm. The leaves he'd pressed and crushed into the paste had looked familiar, had smelled the same, and it should help bring down the pain, reduce the sting. He can't explain, of course, but Kurogane shuts the medic up and beckons him over, gritting his teeth as Fai works the salve in his damaged flesh.

The simple show of trust would be a little frightening if Fai thought about it, but he does not.

He sleeps uneasily, fearing infections, fevers, all the worst, but in the morning Kurogane's fine, better even, and Fai goes out to make more of that salve with uneasy relief carved in his heart.

***

**A/N**: It seemed to me from the manga that Kurogane had formed something of a habit from charging Ashura, so I worked that in. And yes, I know that Fai and Kurogane are reportedly the best warriors in the whole Yasha clan, but I find it very difficult to believe that they never _ever_ get hurt during that six-month period – Fai even mentions in Piffle that Kurogane had a habit of ignoring his wounds, so clearly it must have happened at least once. And getting into more than he'd bargained for during his first attack against Ashura seemed like the best in Kurogane's case.


	5. Chapter 4

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 658 (3904 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; definitely action this time; some introspection  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Notes:** Don't worry, I know exactly where I'm going! ^^;;

***

The battlefield is full and groaning. Fai ducks between the fall of swords and twang of bows and rides his way into the crowd.

In the previous nights they'd ridden side by side, him taking out the threats from far away, Kurogane slashing his sword in deadly arcs, cutting down anyone who got too close. They'd never quite stood at each other's backs, most of the times looking out for themselves instead of for each other, but now there is something missing without the ninja at his side, and he feels open and exposed.

Fai slams his elbow down somebody's neck, and then he frowns because the thought is worrisome and strange.

A knifed hand aims low for his gut and he grabs it and kicks down at its owner. An arrow whooshes and he turns away. He knocks a man aside, parries the long sword of another. As he rushes away, the second man lies groaning in the dirt.

It's strange to fight; he hasn't done so in a while, not like this, man to man, never against someone who hadn't raised a hand against his king. Now he fights men he doesn't know, doesn't know _why_ he fights, only that if he didn't there would be nothing left. He is biding his time without knowing if he is right to wait, to hope, because it has been long enough, three weeks with no news of the children, three weeks with no sign of a feather, nothing at all except the strange feel of this world they fight in and that of the sight of their leader (Yasha, who only comes at night, who fells so powerful and yet so faint, Yasha, who might not even be alive).

A sword careens towards him and he is too surprised to keep from breaking the arm holding it. He swerves to avoid yet another hit, strikes out at both men, one after the other, turns his mount next to parry the strike of a third; each twist is measured, timed, and perfect.

The battlefield is full, and there are shouts and screams, and there is blood, and Fai doesn't quite know whether the men he leaves behind are dead or not. He doesn't pull his punches, like Kurogane must, but neither does he seek the kill. Up on a hill, up in the distance, this world's Ashura-ou watches in wait, and Fai feels his skin crawl.

He's been here far too long with no one but himself for company, even among so many people, even with Kurogane near him every day. Fai cannot speak and doesn't understand, and he's reminded far too much of _that time_ years ago, of bodies in the snow (a body in his arms), cricks in his neck from looking up, up, _up_, and unscaleable walls; a time when there was nobody to talk to, nobody who'd talk back.

He's been here far too long, he thinks, frowns as another blond man falls behind him, and he might just be found – though time has no importance when travelling between worlds; so how much time has really passed since he left cold, broken Celes behind? How long since they last saw the children? The children whom he misses far more than he'd have thought, and hopes (and needs, if his one wish is to be granted) to see again.

A man runs towards him, and then another, and with a quick twist of his sword they both fall to the ground.

There is no magic here, none that the people use, none but that strange, strange feeling that always comes at night; and, strange as it may feel, Mokona might still miss it altogether. Still, he thinks as he rides, shoots, turns, they could arrive tomorrow – the _next_ day, the next week; and he will have to wait, keep himself whole and well.

And Fai rides on, swinging his sword, and the hours pass by him.

***


	6. Chapter 5

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 1280 (5184 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; action this time too… huh…  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Notes:** Don't worry, I know exactly where I'm going! ^^;;

***

Ashura-ou is tall and lithe and nothing like his people (the _mage_ looks more like them than he does. And Fai had known his name. There'd been no recognition in his eyes when they'd got close enough to see the other king, so maybe the two of them aren't connected – but Kurogane doesn't trust coincidences much).

His clothes are delicate and unsuited for battle, his hair is long and loosely bound, and from these things that'd hinder him, and from his utter ease out on the field, Kurogane pegs him as the one to let loose those blasts of power on a few of the nights before.

And Ashura must be a king in his own right, if he's to trust the reverence of his people, and Kurogane wants to try him, wants to know just how strong he is and what kind of a threat, and, if the man is good enough, to polish his own skills as well. He's found no challenge in Ashura's men – they are good soldiers, good and strong, but he's stronger, the mage and him are, both, and while it's interesting to watch Fai at his best, the feel of battle's rushing inside Kurogane's veins and he wants to go with it.

While the mage thinks of god knows what, he dashes forward, all a grin. Ashura smiles at him, benevolent and knowing, and Kurogane doesn't wait to compare that expression, only watches his quick, sure moves – and that's why the man's strike barely grazes instead of kill.

It hits his arm and side, tearing and burning, and Kurogane's left is made almost useless with pain.

Where he comes back down from his leap the ground is hard and jarring, and he turns and raises Souhi, ready to strike back in an instant. Ashura-ou waits for his move, and Kurogane can already see the cool dare in his eyes – and yes, this opponent will do.

But before he can make that one swift, satisfying move, Yasha-ou comes along from nowhere and gets into the fight. The two ride off to hunt each other, and Kurogane is left standing, wondering if their current leader lives or not – because, when the man had passed by him, he hadn't felt like any living thing. (Kurogane vaguely hopes he's alive; it would be somewhat irritating to be led and shown up by a ghost)

He doesn't have too long to think, though, because the space the kings have left behind fills up at once with enemies and allies both, and Kurogane has himself to fend for – and with his left side out for the count he's bound to work for every landed hit and every parried strike. He's starting to look forward to a proper workout just when the mage decides to ride into the fray, going around him in quick circles and hoarding all the fun. Too few men ever manage to get near to pose him any kind of threat, and while Kurogane can, if hard-pressed, appreciate the help, this is the second time tonight when he's had his hopes dashed, and most of him is pissed at being left without.

The hours pass by slowly, red and black, and before long Kurogane's shoulder starts screaming from the strain. The length of his left arm is a packet of throbbing, howling pain, his muscles stinging from improper use, and it galls him, but having the mage there does help, even if half the aches are the man's fault for leaving him too few people to fight, and too much time to let the deceptive numbness set in.

So when the mists gather round them at last Kurogane wants only to get to the river and deal with the burns and the blood. And then he wants to sleep.

But the insufferable mage has to be contrary in everything and starts to drag him back the other way. He almost blows up in Fai's face right there – really, he'd been denied a proper fight all night – but he gets soon enough that he's being taken to the healers, and he stomps on his ire. Which is a damn good thing, because it wouldn't do to have the people see them argue. Their acceptance of Fai is still hanging by a thin thread, and even if his own case is barely any better he's still the one who's vouching for the man, to some small, vague degree, and clear conflicts between them might cause all sorts of troubles.

He does vent his anger on the idiot healer, though.

The man is despairing like all hells, fretting that Kurogane's even moved at all, let alone fought after suffering one of Ashura's attacks, and Kurogane wonders how these people let him get anywhere near their wounded or even _stand _in a clan priding itself on its warriors' hardiness and strength. He's almost happy when the mage shows up again, with medicine to boot, and Kurogane calls him over and shoves the healer towards the wounded that'd started to be brought in after him; the man is glad to go.

The next day he can barely move his arm, though the wound's healing nicely. The mage seems satisfied as well when he checks for himself, and that's another good sign there.

He spends the whole day in the healers' tent, and Fai comes by to see him twice before the nightfall, rubbing more of that green salve on his skin and redoing his bandages each time. It's all boring and slow until the moon-rise, when the men have to leave for war again.

Kurogane will stay behind, of course. He'd be far from his best and these people aren't worth risking his neck for yet. The mage will have to fight, though, it's his task. So Kurogane leaves the healers and goes into their tent around the time when Fai'd have armed himself for battle, and they finally quarrel then (quarrel, or something like it).

He presses a sword in Fai's hand, shouts at him when Fai doesn't want to take it, curses and huffs when he can't explain what he's sure the mage must know. Bows and arrows aren't enough with no one at his back, and he can't trust anyone here to watch it for him; he's not quite sure he trusts the mage himself. So Kurogane doesn't let him leave, grabbing his arm with his good hand and glaring, and in the end Fai throws a laugh his way and buckles the sword at his waist. After he's gone Kurogane lies down and watches the moon through the tent-flap, waiting to see if the mage will get himself killed or not.

But Fai returns some hours later, and he throws Kurogane some red fruit before he goes to wash the dried blood off his skin. The borrowed sword is left down in a corner, and Fai settles down on the floor to clean it after he comes bacl, humming under his breath. Kurogane watches his hands from seven feet away and fights the urge to correct what he's doing – the man won't have to take care of the blade for long.

The next afternoon Fai picks the same sword up, plops down in front of Kurogane, and says, quite clearly, "sword". And then he waits.

Kurogane stares at him for a while, and then takes the sword away.

He points toward the bow, the arrows, then the tent, naming them in his language; the mage repeats each word and Kurogane corrects every trial.

From then on Fai learns five words every day, though he still never seems to use them. And Kurogane wonders what he has in store.

***


	7. Chapter 6

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 630 (5814 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit, I have no idea. Slice of life?  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Notes:** Don't ask me where this came from. I have no idea. It definitely wasn't planned this way, that's for sure.

***

Kurogane tries his best for ten long, strained minutes, even going as far as to curl his fingers around Fai's own, but when Fai still can't manage he gives up.

They both give up, in fact.

Fai's hand is cramping and he can't really see the point – as far as he's concerned, the effort isn't worth it.

So he throws the chopsticks away and starts eating with his bare hands, hungry enough not to care about manners, even if they hadn't been alone in their tent. Not that the food is to his liking much – it's strangely spiced at times and curiously put together, and every other meal during the first few weeks he's tried things blindly, having no clue what most of them were made of, or even if they'd make him sick.

Again.

Because the only thing till now that managed to lay Fai low in this world happened to be the food.

While they'd been held and questioned, the guards had supplied them with water and some white rolls that Fai assumed had stood for bread – and that was fine, and not one thought of strange, sickening diets had crossed his otherwise engaged and worried mind.

Then they'd been brought into the clan, and the settlement's kitchens had opened up for them, because these people catered well to the needs of their soldiers. There was a large tent where the men could go to eat, either fresh food at night, when they returned from battle, or leftovers the coming day.

And there were feasts from time to time, and day-long hunts, and half the village would go fishing when it was time to build up stocks, and everything they had they made themselves – there was life brimming there, healthy and strong, and Fai and Kurogane had been thrown in the middle of it, not trusted yet and watched, but in the middle nonetheless.

In the beginning they'd eat in the common tent, not free for long enough that they could work or trade their way into getting the needed things to cook themselves, and while Kurogane was mostly pleasantly surprised at the dishes on hand, Fai generally stared and frowned, because half of the foods were absolutely new to him.

One awful, miserable time, while he wasn't reckless enough to try the raw fish that Kurogane was so fond of, he thought the dark green stuff beside it was looking somewhat safe (and Fai actually _liked_ it). So he had that, and the fried meat (which smelled like venison, tasted like venison), and two hours later he was trying not to clutch at his aching belly. Two hours after that he told himself he'd had enough and left the tent with a grimace to stick his fingers down his throat. When he dragged his feet back Kurogane scowled up at him and pointed to a jug of water, and Fai went back outside with an uneasy laugh to rinse away the awful taste.

Happily, by the time the night drew near he was feeling much better, and that, at least, was fine.

So Fai's learned to take meals as some mishap waiting to happen, an everyday surprise, because, half-closed in his own mind, he's figured that he might as well. If he thinks about it, that is a timer in itself – if he gets to know every dish, what he likes, what he doesn't, and what, potentially, could make him ill, then he'll know he's been here too long.

In the last week he's seen something new only once.

He hasn't been sick again, either.

And Fai thinks he'll need something to divert his attention, a small something he could latch on to. And, sending baleful glances at the chopsticks, he decides he has just the thing.

***

**A/N 2**: Be honest. Were you thinking dirty thoughts at first? :P (that bit hadn't been in the plan either XD)


	8. Chapter 7

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 837 (6651 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit, slice of life, maybe. Does "thought-wandering" count as a genre?  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Notes:** This is late, I know; it took me this long to update because I kept reworking the chapter in my head, but mostly because I kept forgetting to mail myself the damn first draft from work... And then I posted the wrong chapter. Sigh.

* * *

"You're an idiot," you tell him, and you're certain you're right.

He still can't eat properly with chopsticks, after more than a week of trying, and nobody's that useless, least of all, you admit, the mage. The man must be pulling this stunt for fun, and what kind of a _normal_ person draws enjoyment from making a fool of himself?

(Granted, he's changed tactics lately, because the day before he'd showed up with a wooden fork, half-made and as yet clumsy, grinning proudly and widely, while you just blinked at him, shaking your head)

"You can't eat, can't behave, and now you can't wash clothes either. What were they _teaching_ you in that world?"

You know you're being unreasonable (what would a court wizard be doing washing his own clothes? sure, he can dabble in the kitchens and maybe learn to cook, it _is_ close enough to his practice; but start washing his clothes? not likely) but you're damn well entitled to. He's butchering your name in public (though, thankfully, it never catches on; you'd have to hurt him if it did, and you don't want the hassle of explaining why you're no longer "friends" all of a sudden) and acting like a loon whenever you're alone together, prattling on in that language of his that doesn't seem to know the meaning of a vowel, and making your hands itch to shake him silent (you don't, because when other people are around he doesn't speak a word, his silences dark, empty holes; you don't, because, while walking in the village, the men look at him with mistrust, the women watch his steps in fear, and many children stare.)

He stops and looks at you, the bloodied shirt held tightly in his hands, seeming much less confused than eager to make out your meaning; it's been over three weeks since you've been here, and this is now a game to him.

He'd been scrubbing a handful of wet cloth over another, the clumsy handhold making it drag over the backs of his fingers as well. Magic users spend their lives among books, you know, their hands kept delicate and soft for spell work, and, while the mage can fight, no weapon that you know of can build calluses on the backs of fingers; and now he's scraping them raw like a fool, risking a split-second delay in the draw of his bow tonight.

Of course, you couldn't _explain_ the proper way of washing clothes even if he understood your words, so you take the easy way out, stepping over to the trough, by his side, and just grabbing his hands; you think that this do-as-I-do-you-idiot thing is turning into something of a habit.

"You'll wreck your hands," you tell him, scrubbing at the cloth like he'd done before, pushing against his bones to make the slight discomfort clear. Then you unclench his fingers, change his hold, and start washing the shirt the way he should have done from the beginning, cloth against cloth, in sweeping, almost careless arcs.

The water stains your sleeves, large drops flying on both your clothes from the forced angle and the strokes, exaggerated for the sake of demonstration. His hands tighten in yours and you decide he's got it.

"Like that," you say, and nod. "Now let's see what damned mess you've made." And you move your hands to the side, take hold of his own from another angle and stretch them for display. You clear away the suds with just a sweep, and then you see (but mostly feel) the marks.

His fingers are crisscrossed with scars, a webbing of small cuts that go from front to back, a latticework so fine that it's almost become its own white mass, something that'd normally stand out; but his skin is just pale enough that nobody can see from only a quick glimpse, and half the time, you can remember, he's worn some sort of gloves.

The next moment he whips his hands away, and you stare back at him wondering what the hell he'd done to get them so broken and marred – dug holes in hard earth? graves? dozens and hundreds, one after the other? The marks are old, softened and covered up by time, so just how young had the mage been right then, and just what _had_ they done to him in Celes?

He looks at you, and his eyes and the shadow of his smile are a like wall, uncrackable and blank. He doesn't need the language to make it clear that no, you'll never know, you will never find out because he'll never breathe a word, and this isn't your business. He is, all of a sudden, entirely cut off, remote, and looking at him now you understand how he can manage to get by through the day here, in this world where nobody understands him and he can barely understand at all. All in all, it's not very different from the way he acts on an ordinary day.

* * *

**Notes 2**: To have an idea about Fai's smile, look-up this panel, please. http: // www. onemanga. com/ Tsubasa_Reservoir_Chronicles /57 /05 /  
I think it's the best depiction of Fai's secret-keeping ways. Poor, conflicted man.

As for the scars on his fingers – we know that in Valeria he kept trying to climb over the wall, and I don't know how long he stayed in that valley, but from how tall he got from one flashback to another it must have been at least three, four years; after three-four years of scraping his fingers bloody on a possibly daily basis, some marks _had_ to have remained, and if the manga didn't show them I figured they were very fine (the scar on Kurogane's hand isn't all that clear all the time, either). Or I was just shamelessly making them up, but humour me XD


	9. Chapter 8

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 724 (7375 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit… I have no idea either. *fails*  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

* * *

He ached to the bone, tired and spent, his face pressed down into their makeshift bed. The blankets he lay on were bunched and creased uncomfortably under him, digging into his ribs, pressing against his stomach, but Fai wouldn't have moved for the world. It was a quiet kind of comfort and reward, to be stretched out limply like this, to breathe in shallowly and quick and not care about anything at all – it'd been a while since he had needed to.

Today's practice had been good and exhausting.

Although they gathered in one place for it, the people here trained on their own, working with their favourite weapons and sometimes challenging each other; the two of them would do the same. Fai focused on shooting his arrows every day, going against Kurogane when the man asked him to, and challenging nobody else – the others looked at him with far too little trust for that to be acceptable just yet. Nobody had challenged him either, but they would watch his almost daily spars with Kurogane in something like interest and awe. Fai thought this had to do with the way he moved, most likely different from everything they'd seen and learned before; where they would parry and strike back, Fai would evade and shift. He used his body like they used their swords, and that flowing, practiced ease would translate to whatever weapon he'd be holding. To them, it would no doubt seem strange.

So Fai hadn't been too surprised when two of them had challenged him this morning.

They'd thrown a wooden staff at him and taken their stances, and Fai had smiled and charged. The two men had been perfectly in sync, clearly used to this type of trial and to each other, and they'd fought fairly and with relish. In the end there had been no winner, the match only a test, both for Fai and themselves, and by the time they'd nodded at him, short and sure, he'd got, if not their trust, at least their recognition. Fai had felt carefully relieved.

And then had come another challenge.

And another.

By the time they'd all been through, Fai had sparred with twenty-eight men in nineteen matches, never once being overcome. And every other man had watched.

If this had really been a trial by fire, the people's own, apart from that of their leader and elders, Fai couldn't tell why they'd waited until that day to act. Maybe after over a month they'd realised that he wasn't a threat. Maybe he'd fought and been attacked by enough of Ashura's men to make them see that they were not connected. Maybe they'd just got bored with frowning at him all the time. He was sure that he'd never know. Right now, five minutes after sprawling on the bed like a wet rag, he didn't even wonder.

In three hours' time they'd have to arm themselves, and Fai would have to dredge up enough energy to fight for half the night – fight and make it look good. He snorted; he would have to impress, because surely that was what part of today's trial entailed – to see whether he could reach some long ago decided level of stamina and strength, because with these people good marksmanship just wouldn't be enough. It was fine, Fai thought; they were welcoming him in, slowly.

He got halfway up and arched, and the bones of his lower back popped and aligned themselves; Fai groaned in happiness and plopped down with a sigh. Kurogane tch'ed at him from somewhere at his right and kept polishing… something; probably his long sword. Fai couldn't see and didn't crane his neck.

He'd have to leave the bed soon, to stretch and massage every muscle, his legs, his arms, his abdomen. And for his back and shoulders he'd have to ask Kurogane for help. Soon, very soon, before stiffness would have a chance to settle in; five minutes from now, maybe ten. Lying down was simply wonderful, and it was easy to drift off to the rhythmic, methodical sound of Kurogane caring for his blade, to the quiet and the calm.

Fai took a long, deep breath, and stretched his arms beside him, amused at the sound of his elbows popping into place.

Tonight would be a trial; tomorrow would be better.

* * *

**A/N**: Sigh. Please tell me if you hate it. I'm at the point where I'm welcoming flames wholeheartedly, as long as they refer to something specific... which would make them concrit, I guess... right, never mind, ignore me ^^;;


	10. Chapter 9

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 615 (7990 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit… I have no idea either. *fails*  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

**Note: **Oh yes, I know this is very, very late – my only excuse is that, apart from a general unwillingness to write and/or edit, my entire attention was high-jacked by not one, but _two_ new fandoms. I didn't stand a chance.

Also, the fic is renamed "Yama snippets" instead of "Shura snippets" because it finally dawned on me that when Fai referred to the country in the past as Shura he was only talking about the country Syaoran and Sakura had landed in. He and Kurogane had, of course, landed in a different country, and considering the info in RG Veda, it's _obvious_ that it'd be called Yama. I have no idea why I kept denying this all this time. Oh well ^^;;

* * *

On the 43rd day, right in the middle of the village, a girl calls out Fai's name and jumps into his arms in tears.

Between hiccups and gasps she speaks half-broken words into his neck but they make no sense to him. He looks at Kurogane while stroking the girl's back, but the man only shrugs at him. The people round them stop to watch and whisper, and Fai is starting to get worried.

And then a woman rushes over and wraps her arms around them both, and Fai's eyebrows climb to the heavens; with his hands literally full, he is entirely confused. Strangely enough, the people watching them begin to turn away, some smiling, others nodding – Kurogane just smirks at him, amused.

After a while the woman pulls away, taking the young girl in her arms. With her eyes in tears and full of gratitude, she tells Fai 'thank you' (this, he understands), then turns around and leaves.

Fai blinks and stares, and then he turns to Kurogane with a clear question on his face.

The ninja uncrosses his arms and points up to the sky (the fights, Fai understands), moves one hand in a little arc (the past, the fight the night before). He frowns and thinks for half a beat, and then he feigns striking Fai with a sword. At the last moment he grabs his own hand, stopping the 'strike', and then points back at Fai. He does this twice before Fai nods (the night before he had saved someone's life). Then Kurogane points back to the way the girl and woman had come from; he brings his arms together, miming the rocking of a child (he steps on the impulse to sigh and strangle the life out of Fai when the man sniggers shamelessly) then points that way again and says, slowly and clearly, "musume".

Fai blinks and comprehension dawns, and his smile spreads, slow and surprised, before he remembers himself.

Then he turns away in a flurry and points to a girl passing by; he says "musume", and Kurogane pulls a face (Fai grins at that) and nods. Then to another; Kurogane nods again. When Fai points at two boys chasing each other round a tent Kurogane shakes his head and offers "musuko" instead. Fai rolls the word around on his tongue then points toward two other boys, older, almost young men, saying "musuko" himself. Kurogane frowns at that but nods after a beat, almost an afterthought. When he turns back to leave Fai grabs his arm; he points at him asking "musuko" and Kurogane shakes his head, muttering something short and sharp that Fai cannot make out. He leaves without adding a thing, and Fai just trails behind him, careful for once not to step on his toes.

Fai understands that the two words refer only to girls and boys, to children. He understands that the man's daughter and (probably) his wife had come to thank him, and he's a little touched and quite a lot relieved at the show of acceptance. He doesn't understand Kurogane's last frown or the clench of his fist, but he can't ask, wouldn't even if he had the right words.

Fai doesn't know what'd happened to Kurogane that could have been used by _that man_ before the Witch had interfered, but he is sure it had been painful, enough for the ninja to take that offered hand no matter what the price. No matter what, and that is why Fai stands on Fei Wang's side right now, involved, connected, a bound pawn. So he doesn't dare ask, doesn't dare want to know, for fear of what he might learn in the end.

* * *

**A/N 2**: 'Musume' and 'musuko' mean 'daughter' and 'son', respectively. Fai misunderstands, thinking the words mean 'girl' and 'boy', possibly 'young woman', 'young man' (it's why he checks whether Kurogane fits into the 'musuko' category, and he takes Kurogane's reaction at his question as a 'no')

Also, I'm choosing to believe that, while FWR had told Fai everything about his master plan related to the clones, and that Kurogane had been initially selected as a pawn-candidate, he hadn't told him exactly what he'd done to Suwa (it doesn't seem important enough a detail to share, really). In my opinion it's possible Fai finds this out what happened once Yuuko talks about it in Tokyo. On the other hand, there's that look of Fai's in Rekord/Le Court after Syaoran wakes up and asks to speak to Kurogane (here: http:// www. onemanga. Com /Tsubasa_Reservoir_Chronicles /99 /03 /) where it might seem like he knows that something painful'd happen to the man in his past – but I'm choosing to believe that he didn't know exactly what.


	11. Chapter 10

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 955 (8945 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit… I have no idea either. *fails*  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

* * *

This is their day.

They wake up late, or at least later than the people who don't spend the night fighting; it is two hours after dawn. They wash their hands and faces with water they'd set out to cool in a brass pitcher by the tent flap. They don't wait to have breakfast.

If it's their turn they help out in the hunt or fish, if not they each find some chore that needs doing – it is their payment for the food and tools and crockery that they receive, and their way of remaining seen. Now that they can afford to, now that they benefit from some measure of trust, Kurogane asks questions and Fai observes the people round him, pointing out who and what he can. They find out about legends, old tales of magic, rumours from abroad; in the end, everything they learn points to the castle in the sky as the most likely source of power, a haven or a prison for the feather, if one of them has fallen in this world, and they keep that in mind each night they go to battle.

Around noon they go sparring. Usually, at least half the men are in the training fields when they arrive, and over time their own appearance brings out wariness, curiosity and cheers. They practice on their own at first, Fai shooting all his arrows twice and Kurogane working through his kata, and during this time there are those who stand and watch. Then they start sparring with the others, with staffs and swords and their bare hands. A few more people gather, watching them as they always win, by far or not, sooner or later, but always, always winning. Then they spar with each other, and by this time there is a crowd around them; every time it ends in a draw, and though the people cannot tell whether this is by choice or not they do not really care – it's always a good fight.

Then they go eat, either in the tent-hall or something that they make, if it's not too late in the day; most of the time they have this meal alone. One of them scrounges up the food, the other cooks, (half the time, though, they cook together), and afterwards they both head over to the river to clean the crockery and get more water for the coming day.

In the few hours left before the rising of the moon they whittle arrows, sharpen blades, polish and straighten out their armour. They rest and think. Sometimes Kurogane teaches Fai more words than is the norm. Sometimes they mend their clothing or the tent. If there is something new to share, a lead, some information, they spend a long, frustrating time imparting it. These are the few lost hours of their day.

A little before moonrise they put the padding and their armour on. They gather up their weapons and start toward the meeting place, other men walking by and calling out to them along the way; they listen to the cheers and shouting and all the sound around them, and they wait.

The moon comes out and they're brought to the sky, and Yasha-ou appears seemingly out of nowhere, seemingly always there, and neither Fai nor Kurogane can ever see him ride to where he stands; he always simply _is_. The people never mind it, and they don't question this too much for fear of squandering the acceptance they've gathered all this time. Yasha-ou always gives a certain feel, and they wonder how the men never notice; they fight beside him nonetheless, hoping to find some explanation, this night, next night, or the one after, hoping for a sign of the feather, because they can't just give up hope, because this means the children might come by. They fight by his side because they have earned it.

Kurogane pulls his punches on everyone but Ashura-ou himself and Fai shoots arrows left and right, taking life only if and when he has to. When the battle ends there is blood on their mounts (though mostly only Kurogane's; there are some benefits in shooting down enemies from afar) and they go clean the dragons and themselves, then make their way into the tent-hall.

Once every few nights there's a feast held there, some greater than the others, and there is food and drink, and people sing and shout, and tell their stories, and all the energy and harsh joy of the fight is spent in merriment and cheers. They drink and eat and listen to the tales, and after an hour or two they make their way back to their tent and their hard bed of blankets.

They fill the pitcher and leave it to cool then move away one of the mats set on the ground and draw in the dirt the five words that Fai will learn that night, or the ones he'll go over. (Along the way, Kurogane's patience with Fai's butchering of his language grows, and Fai makes fun of Kurogane's drawings only a little over half the time; he thinks that, really, they aren't that bad) Fai wishes he could write them down but paper's hard to come by in this place, ink and a brush even more so, and they don't want people to know that Fai's learning the language, no matter how little of it that is.

After they're done, Kurogane sets Souhi by the bed, Fai hides a knife within his reach, and then one of them puts the fire out.

They breathe themselves to sleep, Kurogane stretched on his side and Fai with his face buried in the blankets. And the day ends and starts again.

* * *


	12. Chapter 11

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 375; this is ridiculously short (9320 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this bit… description? *fails*  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama  
**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

* * *

It was balmy in Yama; the wind didn't bite, and, after the rain fell, the air and earth would smell of a damp freshness, like something clean that could be touched and tasted.

Fai would look up into the high, blue sky and feel the breeze against his face, the warm sunlight, and his small smile would stretch.

This world was writing itself in his memories and thoughts like no other before it, neither of the countries they'd skipped to and from in a flurry having had any chance to do the same. There was beauty here, in the line of the mountains etched against the clouds and the smell of the grass and trees; contentment, in the wave of fields in the wind, the ripening of crops that didn't need magic as shelter from the cold. There was fresh green and gleaming gold and the red of the sunsets, the touch of water, cool-but-not-like-ice around his hands and ankles, the riverbank under the soles of his feet, smoothed stones and ground up sand. Everything he had read about and seen in spells but never before lived.

And during the day time passed gently here, the hours rolling by like shadows of clouds on still water, with chores and hunts, language, and food, and games, and the people who lived here, knowing of nothing else and wanting nothing else, rooted in this country by years of history and life.

It was deceptively pleasant and dream-like, easy in its daily routine, until the night fell, cold, and the world tore and turned to black and screams.

Sometimes, Fai's thoughts would wander, and he'd forget himself while whittling down the shaft of a new arrow, gaze lost out in the distance and ears deaf to the mostly-nonsense that was spoken around him. Somebody (mostly Kurogane; the ninja was never too far away) would call to him or nudge his arm, and he'd snap right back with a grin, the daydream fading quickly. It was easy to dream here, where the world was kind, cruel and new, and though he wanted to leave it behind him, needing to see things through (the debt, the chase, the promise), Fai would still breathe everything in; he could not help it.

* * *


	13. Chapter 12

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 744; (10064 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this one, a bit of humour  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

* * *

The mage, Kurogane notices, is more withdrawn and settled when in the company of others. He still gives out a smile at every living thing that comes his way, eyes half-shuttered and sly, and those infuriating nicknames still pour out one after another, but almost every word he says and every manic grin are reserved for their tent alone, for the times when there's no one near them. He is almost two people – pleasant, silent, and strong out in the village, late at night, and the crazy-assed, long-limbed tease when he and Kurogane are together.

It's irritating and confusing – why can't he act more normal _all_ the time? it would save Kurogane all those headaches – and Kurogane wonders sometimes which mask is closer to the truth, which version of the man is more real, if anything about him _is_ even real at all.

Most of the time, though, it plain pisses him off.

Like right now, in the middle of the day, when Kurogane's practicing his knife-throws on a half-dead tree and Fai's crouching close by, fletching his arrows. Because the damn mage feels that irritating need to whistle. Every day. But he can't or just won't, and so he says that blasted word for it instead (which sounds nothing like _hyuuu_ here; who knew the meat-bun's translation could be so detailed). He says it after Kurogane's every throw, every time his knives hit the mark (which makes it _every goddamn time_, because the tree's not very far away), and after twenty, thirty, more than forty drawn out 'whistles', Kurogane's strung-out patience snaps.

"No!" he shouts, marching towards the tree to gather up his weapons. "Not _hyuu_, not _phew_ not _wheet_, not _fluu_, not whatever the hell you call it in your language!" All six knives in his hands now, he rounds over to Fai, gritting his teeth. "Either whistle for real or shut the hell up, or I will _smother you in your sleep_!"

Fai blinks at him from where he's sitting on a tree root, then starts prattling some nonsense, pointing up at Kurogane and grinning like a loon. Kurogane regrets even saying a word. He turns his back on Fai and takes one knife in each hand for the next throw when Fai laughs loudly behind him and says that word again.

"That's _it_!"

Kurogane throws the knives away, turns back, and squats before Fai with an awful scowl.

"Whistle!" he orders, and when Fai stares at him with a bemused look on his face he whistles once himself. "Whistle, goddamn it, it's _easy_, you pucker your lips and blow! _Whistle_!"

His eyes still wide, Fai brings his lips together – and, when he tries it for himself, only warm air comes out.

"No!" Kurogane shakes his head once, shortly. "Wet your lips.

"_Wet your lips_!" he says again when Fai only looks on, does so himself to demonstrate. Fai keeps staring at him, as if Kurogane has sprouted not one extra head but three (which Kurogane feels like, almost, and if he's gone insane it's definitely the fault of the mage) and wets his lips cautiously, tongue sneaking out entirely too slow.

"Good. Now blow," Kurogane instructs, whistling himself again, one long, clear note, no variation. Fai tries to whistle one more time but there is no sound this time either. Clearly, he's doing it all wrong.

"Pucker your _lips_, you imbecile," says Kurogane, reaching over and pressing the corners of Fai's mouth close together – maybe the dumbass will catch on like that. When he lets go, Fai wets his lips again and tries to whistle a third time. Now there's a small, shivery sound, and it grows louder for a moment before Fai loses it again.

"See? Even idiots can do it," Kurogane huffs, almost pleased. If the mage learns to whistle, that damn word will be gone at last. "Keep practicing," he orders, pointing down at the mage's face, who grins and salutes him with far too much enthusiasm. Kurogane scowls and grumbles, then turns around to go back to his knives.

He realizes the gross error of his plan a short while later, when, after all six of his shots reach the target one after the other, the mage blows that weak, wavering thing at him, the whistle breaking in the middle; it crawls up Kurogane's skin.

And he's told Fai to _practice_, and the man had got it somehow, and _grinned_.

Kurogane hangs his head and groans.

* * *

**A/N: **I thought for at least three days for another way to describe whistling than the classic "pucker your lips and blow." I failed. You just can't beat that.

Also, we all know that Fai already knows how to whistle (see: the Rekord country), and that it's actually, possibly related to one form of his magic (I've actually read a lovely fic at one point in which Fai's magic was music-related, and therefore the whistling was part of it, and that's why he never ever whistled around the group except when the events of Rekord happened; I don't remember who wrote it, though :[). So, one of the points of this chapter was to bring out, once again, the number of secrets Fai has and has to keep, and just how subtly they're woven into everything he does. It's quite sad, really.

Also, as I was writing this, I kept thinking of Fai's point of view, and what he might have felt about having to lie about /this/ as well (a small or great thing, depending on how important whistling/music actually is to his magic; we'll never know. I chose to see it as something willing - he /is/ magic, and can make magic out of anything, and whether whistling can actually lead to something magical or not is his choice; I had him still fail at whistling properly in front of Kurogane just to be on the safe side either way :])


	14. Chapter 13

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 374; (10064 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this one, a bit of angst  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does. Isn't that lovely?

* * *

Fai's got used to the schedule and the fighting, whatever it might be for. And that is good and safe and proper, but this is still a war, and he's fighting men with light hair, some of them very young, and the enemy king bears the name Ashura, and Fai still dreams.

And what he dreams is this.

It's after sunset and he's shooting arrow after arrow at a distant tree. The target, small and made of straw, is swinging from the force of all the impacts, and so does its shadow against the torn, cracked bark. The arrows stick out from it at odd angles, and they seem double more when reflected against the tree, and soon they are double again as Fai empties his quiver.

When he walks over to the tree he sees that the fletching is red and black, and there is blood spattered on the dark ground, still dripping sickly in small puddles. And the puppet is living still, and the puppet is Fai, his Fai, and he's looking up with blind eyes, bleeding, crying, losing his flesh in chunks, tearing up to his small, white bones.

Fai's hands are covered in warm blood and shaking, and when he wakes his throat burns from the held-back scream, and his entire body quakes when he scrambles from underneath the blankets.

"Oy!" Kurogane says beside him, a liquid, solid shape blurred in the dark, and Fai gets up and stumbles from the tent, gasps in his chest.

He wanders aimlessly until the image of his bleeding, rotting brother fades away from his mind. He walks for a long time, and the dawn finds him stretched near by the river, hands plunged in icy water, numb.

Fai wants to bring his brother back, and after all these years it seems that it might soon happen at last. But Fai feels doubly guilty now, because he doesn't want to hurt the children and doesn't want to think about the final outcome, not at all.

He gets by through the day by carefully not acting out of place, and it's easier here, because he can smile and pretend knowing that Kurogane will not, cannot ask, and that the people do not know to look.


	15. Chapter 14

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 161; (10599 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Fai didn't speak much, that was nothing new. The people had got used to that after a while, and no longer expected him to say a word at all. And where this would have wedged a break between him and the village, the mage was careful to compensate for all that.

He hunted and he fished, frequently and with great results. His arrows were well aimed and sure, bringing down venison and snatching fish from the quick waters of the river, and the people took notice and admired the skill.

For some reason, Kurogane was fiercely proud of that, sometimes, for short, disjointed moments, when they returned to the encampment and the men and women showered the mage with praise. It might have been relief, instead, that Kurogane wouldn't have to worry about the people suddenly turning against them after all. He didn't wonder much about it, though; the days were too short for him to care, one way or another.


	16. Chapter 15

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 1181; (11780 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; probably angst for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

It's been over four months and Fai is getting himself drunk.

The night is ending with its usual feast, drinks and shouting all around, and Fai has skinned and carved several of the meats sprawled out half-eaten on the long and winding table, because today it was his turn, their turn, to help out in the hunt.

He doesn't know how long it's really been, which he hates and feels guilty for, but he's hunted twelve times in all, once ever ten, long, fast-paced days, and with the time they spent as prisoners at first it must be longer than four months, and Fai is getting drunk because he's sick of keeping his hopes up, here where so many people die and there is blood on his hands all so often.

Fai is afraid that the children will never come, that he can't pay his debt, that Fai, his Fai, will never live, and that way _he_ can never die, rest, stop, that he'll have to keep waiting, waiting, waiting, and Fai drinks so he will not have to think.

Fai is afraid that the children will never come, and he misses them so, more than he'd ever thought, more than he'd ever feared, and he's afraid they'll come to harm and he wants to protect them, but even being here might be a danger to them, so maybe it's better they're gone – yes, in time he'd have to betray them, yes, in time that man will demand his price, he will take them, and Fai will have to watch, and they will look at him and Fai will be so sorry, but he will have to strike Syaoran down and keep Kurogane from helping – because he will, he'll want to help, Fai knows that he misses the children too, and Fai hopes he won't have to hurt him, kill him, end him, and wouldn't it be so much better if they were both left here and the poor children never came?

But Fai, _Fai_, his Fai, is important, everything else is not, and Ashura will wake up at one point, and Chii will die then, won't she, and so might he himself, thought he can't die, can't ever die, and Fai drinks and keeps drinking, enough to wipe his thoughts clean, just this once.

Kurogane, who won't ever get home unless the children get here – and they shouldn't, this is a war the should not see – Kurogane is watching him with eyes that pierce him so much less now that they're faded black, but still see all too much, and just this once Fai doesn't care. Kurogane can't understand him, no matter what Fai lets slip by, so Fai drinks all his sorrows as best and fast as he can, trying not to remember the night he'd dreamt shooting his brother full of wood and steel, dead on, all dead.

Kurogane, who won't ever get home unless Fai sends him there himself – he could, he could try couldn't he? When there is no hope left, when Ashura wakes up and comes to find him, when Fai will have to run – Kurogane is saying something but Fai won't listen to the tone he understands so well, won't listen to the words he's been starting to understand more and more every day or to whatever else might be behind them because, because of everything, because there's nothing, in fact, there. And Fai won't have to worry even more or think about his own thoughts, either.

So Kurogane, around whom Fai's being too comfortable, Kurogane is speaking to him and Fai, to prove his point, has taken up his bottle and started climbing on the table. And Fai stomps on the wood and knocks the bottle with those awful chopsticks, dragging the tent's attention to him. And Fai begins to sing, a drunkard's song, subtle, meandering and lewd, stomping the rhythm with his feet and keeping the small measures with the bottle and the chopsticks and his voice. The song is empty without the full and maddened music that went along with it back home (and home is dead and gone, now), and Fai's one voice can't do it justice, but most people are too surprised to even hear him speak to make note of one or the other. And they pick up the song and start pounding their fists into the beat, and Fai sings to the ceiling and the walls and shouts and waves his bottle and his arms, grasping for the drunk bounty of the song and with the missing instruments blaring painfully in his ears. The people shout and hum alongside him, catching the tune and rhythms as they go, laughing, watching, and hungering in parts, and Fai is too happy with sweet, fleeting numbness to care.

He sees Kurogane frown up at him and doesn't care about that either.

The song is long and heartening, and Fai stats skipping over plates and bowls, and they clear the table for him, amused to have him run amok, and Fai won't stop to think or wonder – surely they're just as drunk as him.

He drops down to his knees on the few final verses, shouting them out and emptying the bottle, and when the song finally ends he stretches on his back on the half-cleared table, strung out and spent, his heart thundering, threatening to break.

Kurogane is there. Kurogane is sober and has watched Fai through his number less than he has the people – who praise them and respect them, and see them as their own. And the people are drunk, and Fai is lying on the table, asking for a sound 'friendly' beating or maybe something worse. So Kurogane's there, and he picks Fai up in one move and heaves him on his shoulder, the way he'd done in Outo all those long months ago – but Fai isn't talking this time, or moving, or even awake – and he makes his way from the Hall and heads straight to their tent. There are whistles and jeers and Kurogane easily ignores them – let them think what they like, so long as they're not given trouble. Most, though, are just cheers for Fai's singing, taken as tribute to Yasha's small victory tonight, which has cemented their place in between these people and ironed out the wrinkles even more, and Kurogane's glad for that, at least.

They reach their tent in cold, pitch blackness, and he lies the mage on the blankets, boneless and gone. When Fai makes to get up he sets a hand down on his shoulder, pushing him back, and Fai covers his wrist with his own hand, and in the darkness Kurogane cannot see his face. They stay like that for two moments or three, and then the mage pushes his hand away and half-curls on their makeshift bed.

Kurogane leaves it at that. He fills out two pitchers with water – the mage will need one when he wakes – sets Souhi by the bed and lies down to his rest as well. He chases his own dreams away.


	17. Chapter 16

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 220; (12000 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Fai's left shin hurt and he had no idea why.

He hadn't banged it up in practice, hadn't slept on it, hadn't strained it in a jump. It just ached dully for some reason, a slow, unfocused pain from the inside, which was infuriating because there was nothing he could do but bear its niggling. As he was whittling his arrows he sometimes stopped to rub at it, bothered by the fact that it bothered him at all.

Yesterday, Kurogane'd asked him something, pointing down at the leg, and Fai had smiled and shaken his head wryly – there was nothing wrong with him, and this was just a bother. The ninja hadn't brought it up again, and Fai had almost forgotten he'd asked; which would be when Kurogane came in and stomped over to him, sat by his side, grabbed his leg and pushed up the pant-leg, and then started to rub on something greasy and smelling faintly of herbs.

Fai stared at Kurogane, dumbfounded, but the man gave no explanation – not that Fai would have understood any of it, so that was maybe just as well. He set the half-made arrow and the knife away and looked as Kurogane's hands worked steadily at his leg, making the ache worse and then taking it away, leaving only a cool relief.


	18. Chapter 17

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 247; (12247 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Round the 150th day, they go to the tent-hall for lunch, splitting up at the entrance. Fai goes to get them drinks and Kurogane rounds up something from the food spread out, and they meet by the corner of one table, putting their spoils together.

Halfway into the meal, he notices the mage had brought them different drinks (he has a try at Fai's, but he likes his own better) and that in picking out the food he'd got a somewhat sweeter dish for Fai.

When they make their way to the tent, he goes to light the fire and Fai puts up the flap to let the smoke rush out. Kurogane mends Souhi's hilt and Fai fletches his arrows, and when the moon rises they go to war.

In the morning, Fai folds and piles up all the blankets and takes them out with a large bar of soap. Kurogane puts down the strip of leather he'd been handling and they go to the river to air and wash what stands in for their bed, scrubbing them down against the stones and wringing them together. They hang them up to dry on a line stretched between two trees and then go do their share of chores that day.

Kurogane can no longer remember when they'd started to be this much in key, when they way they fitted in battle had crossed over to their everyday life. In this world, though, he'll take everything he can get.


	19. Chapter 18

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 216; (12463 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Kurogane mostly dreams about home, because many things here remind him of it (the armour, the food and the drinks, the goddamn language even)

He dreams about walking the wooden bridge to the main entrance of the castle, the colour of the sky and the smells of the breeze.

He dreams that he returns to find Tomoyo dead and the castle burnt down because he hadn't been there to prevent it. That he gets back and Tomoyo sends him off once again. That he travels the worlds forever, but none of them are his.

He dreams about all of them reaching his home at last, the princess sitting by Tomoyo and the kid fighting against Souma in a half-decent display of his skill, with the mage running round and making people laugh.

He dreams of himself old and grey in this world, still displaced and waiting.

One time he dreams the mage is drowning, his face peaceful and happy as it sinks, and himself wading shallow waters, trying to reach the man in time. He doesn't, and Fai drowns with his eyes open. And in the dream, because he knows it is a dream, he wants to wake up, badly, and when he does he is relieved. And that dream is the strangest one of all.


	20. Chapter 19

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 658; (13121 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

**Note**: There's more, but this is all I've had the time to edit today.

* * *

It's late one afternoon when Kurogane counts the days and realises they've been here for more than five months. In this time they have earned a status that normally should have been gained in years; they are the hailed two strongest warriors of all the Yasha clan (barring Yasha-ou himself, but he never appears except at night, and Kurogane doubts that he even exists), known as such even by the enemy, and they are left to roam the place even as far as Yasha-ou's own tent.

This brings them nothing, though. From everything they've learned, nobody here has heard talk of a magic feather, or of two children passing by any time in their pasts, and Kurogane tries to keep track of some hope by reminding himself that time flows differently in every world, and the children could still show, tomorrow, the day after, and then they could all leave this place. He carefully ignores the fact that, just the same, they could appear long years after their own arrival, or that they've come and gone already, only not close enough to meet.

He also keeps his hopes up by stubbornly refusing to fit in in all; both of them do the same. The mage still wears that black ribbon he'd got from Shara snaked around his neck, and learns as little of the language as he can get away with, using the little he knows even less. He holds on proudly to the wooden fork he'd carved one afternoon. Kurogane keeps his old boots and doesn't connect with his mount.

They, both of them, keep just a little shy of all the men and women here, eating and drinking at the feasts and sitting round the campfires, but always almost ready to put it all behind and leave. Kurogane wonders at times if they wish the state of mind on themselves or if it doesn't just come naturally; this land isn't their own.

He sighs into the new set of reigns he's been making, and Fai looks up from where he's mending one of his torn sleeves by the fire. Kurogane waves it away and the mage smiles at him half-teasingly before he turns back to his chore. After a moment his now longer hair gets in his eyes and Fai blows it away with a quick breath. He keeps working as Kurogane glances at him, and so, the ninja turns away.

Then a few sparks fly on the shirt Fai is sewing and he shakes it at arm's length to keep the cloth from lighting up. Kurogane looks up again and Fai turns back to sewing with a little frown. He blows his hair out from his eyes again. And again, when it doesn't stick. The third time he draws fingers through his hair, trying to tuck the longer bits behind his ears.

His shadow moves against the dark tent walls as he shifts, the firelight playing with it.

Kurogane watches as Fai's hair stays put for all of three seconds before it starts to slip again, one strand after another, and there's a small twitch of annoyance at Fai's lips when he straightens it again.

The hair shines gold and red in the warm firelight and his fingers are light and quick.

It doesn't last long this time either, and when Fai's hair begins to slip again Kurogane drops the reigns and crosses over to his side, picking a knife up as he goes. Fai looks at him askance, a little sheepish and a little put upon, and Kurogane pushes his face forward, kneeling behind him with a frown.

He gathers Fai's hair in his hands, pulling roughly up at it, and before Fai can say a word, in any language, he drags the knife through it, throwing the cut strands in the fire.

When he goes back to his discarded reigns, Fai stares at him, perplexed, but at least he's not fussing with his hair or huffing anymore, and Kurogane's satisfied with that.


	21. Chapter 20

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 120; (13241 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

**Note**: There are very few chapters left (if you could call them that, they're very short). I really hope it won't take me another month to upload them as well ^^;;

* * *

When they go out to spar, these days, they are spread out like in a perfect dance, as if they're doing a routine when nothing could be farther than the truth. Each move and step is unpredictable, but by now they have learned each other's moves and steps enough that they don't need to think what this swipe or that feint might mean; they know. The people watch them now not to appraise them but to cheer them on. And when the both of them decide to end the fight, burning, and breathing, and locking eyes and blades, it's always at a stalemate, and they are different, not a thing alike, but they are even, and they are a match.


	22. Chapter 21

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 125; (13366 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

It's pouring steadily with small, sharp drops, and the wind whips them up against their faces and their hands. Fai's holding down the edges of the tent while Kurogane hammers at the loosened peg – the whole thing hadn't been set up right in the first place (and Kurogane's trying not to blame the clan, but he still curses left and right). They're soaking wet and cold, and the howling around them makes them deaf; when the tarp almost billows from his grasp, Fai laughs loudly into the sky.

After the storm, they're standing side by side and mending tears in their bedraggled tent. The sun is pale and half covered by clouds, and the corners of Fai's mouth are still upturned, long, quiet hours later.


	23. Chapter 22

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 149; (13515 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

The quiet one's smile is soft and mellow, his eyes both half-lidded and sharp. The sure, swift flight of all his arrows has earned him praise, and the others watch him in awe, the stranger with the hair of gold, who doesn't speak their language and doesn't know their ways.

They watch the man called Kurogane also, he who fells but never kills, the stranger who is not a stranger but never truly fits.

Strong and swift they are alike, unbreakable together, and they're held high among the ranks, who know them, cheer for them, and down drinks in their name.

And they drink too, the strangers do, drink to their leader and their clan, eat with them, train with them – and yet they stand apart, keeping more to each other, although they do not even share a word – how could they, when the blond one does not speak?


	24. Chapter 23

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 97; (13612 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; I have no idea for this one  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Kurogane drags him around in the beginning, grabs his arm to take him to the armoury, the mess hall, or the stables. It is disconcerting, the almost frequent contact, but over time, through all the fighting, and the training, the occasional bandaging session, and just by living in so close a space, the strangeness fades away. It's slow enough that Fai misses the process altogether. It dawns on him one day when he's leaning against Kurogane's shoulder to reach a basket on a high up shelf, not because he's doing it, but because Kurogane doesn't move away.


	25. Chapter 24

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 321; (13933 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this one, gasp, a combination of pseudo-angst and paranoia~  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

You wake up one morning, months and months after the first fight in the sky, and see him sleeping next to you. You realise you know his shape, the look of him, his every tone of voice (you've almost trained yourself to read the changes in his mimic and his voice, to understand them in place of the words he spoke – just like a dog, you think, and isn't that just funny, _he_ was the 'puppy', wasn't he, but what were you to do?)

You are as close to him as anyone could be without being… closer.

You should be worried but you do not care.

In the cold light of morning you can admit that there is little hope left to be harboured – the children will never find you, or at least not in time, the odds are well stacked up against it; you will not pay your debt, and your brother will always be a sleeping corpse frozen under the waters of that pool. Your king will awaken one day, and when that happens you will leave one final time, have one last fight. You think (you almost hope) that you will die, but you cannot be sure.

You wonder whether Kurogane thinks he'll ever see the rest of your little group again; ever go home again. Maybe when Ashura awakens and there is no hope left you _will_ send him to his world, after all. He'd like that. Maybe. _You'd_ like that.

In the damp, hazy light of morning, you also wonder what he sees when he looks at you, really looks, now and then and again, whether he sees right through you (although you know he can't, because you're being careful, but what if he's even _more_ careful, and you just cannot tell, you can't tell anything to anyone – and maybe that's a good thing), and whether you should be grateful for the one or the other.


	26. Chapter 25

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 357; (14290 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this one, maybe something like humour? or not?  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

It was a testament to the man's miserable ability to tease the life out of anything that he managed to put across his meaning with only a smile and a waggle of his eyebrows.

"Shut up," Kurogane ground out, disgusted, and stalked away to bring the fresh hides to the tanner.

'_They _look_ at you_,' the mage's eyes had said, '_they watch you train and chop wood, and they _giggle. _Kuro-tan is an eye-catch~_' Fai had leered (and how infuriating was it that Kurogane'd even understood the _nickname_!), and Kurogane had huffed and turned away to keep from really registering that thought, because that had the weight of years and years and permanence attached to it, of _staying here_, and what were all those crazy women _thinking_, setting their hopes on two strange men they didn't know?

Because, oh yes, they'd 'noticed' the mage too, and _how_. Once they'd stopped shaking like a leaf each time the man even walked past them, they'd started bringing him sweet treats; a shirt, a blanket; at one point, there had been flowers. And all of this with the same big, simpering smiles. Sometimes Kurogane wanted to shake some sense into them. Oh sure, as far as they knew, the mage was near _perfect_ - good fighter, good hunter, damn decent with the fishing, the look of someone soft spoken, if he could have spoken the language at all – from their point of view, the mage was a catch. They had no idea that he babbled in his funny language when they were alone, that he acted like a loon around half that time; that his smiles were fake and his secrets many. That they really didn't know him at all.

But they kept coming round, because Fai took their presents, and he smiled at them, and waved. And now they'd started to make eyes at _him_, and pretty soon, the gods forbid, they'd start bringing _him_ shirts and capes and wreaths of flowers to hang round his neck. And worst of all, _worst_ of all, the mage would keep teasing. Bastard. What was Fai doing, noticing people noticing him, anyway?

* * *

**AN**: Uh, since there've been mentions of this, I though I should point out that this "chapter" wasn't really about jealosy at all...


	27. Chapter 26

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.  
**Words**: 80; (14370 total and counting)  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Genre**: General, in general; for this one, maybe pseudo-angst  
**Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

Close to 180 days, and they are gearing up for battle yet again. Kurogane fastens his sword and cloak, then turns towards the mage to signal their departure. Fai has his black ribbon coiled round his fingers. It's stained where drops of blood wouldn't come off, mended to hide its tears; Fai looks at Kurogane for a beat, then wraps it once around his neck. He grabs his bow and arrows, and they go.

They are still waiting, even now.


	28. Chapter 27

**Title**: Yama snippets  
**Pairing**: Kurogane x Fai, pre-pre-slash you could call it.**  
Words**: 425; (14795 total)**  
Rating**: PG-13**  
Genre**: General, in general; for this one, pseudo-angst; maybe**  
Spoilers**: Fai's backstory, Kurogane's backstory, and the events up to and including Yama

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing; Clamp does.

* * *

  
It is a shock when the children arrive. It's the middle of battle and, suddenly, the words don't seem so strange to Kurogane, and Fai can understand. They stare at one another for a beat, then make their way deeper into the fray. Six months seem very short, and rushing towards the children is natural and easy.

The only difference now is that Fai doesn't need words to understand Kurogane's intent – a glance and a grin are enough.

***

The sudden loss of understanding once the smoke dissipates, and they return to Yama, is more disorienting now than it had been before. Now, however, they know it won't last long; they know that they will leave, and their tent feels alien now, the people round them foreign once again, and everything they've learned and done for half a year feels like a dream

Fai doesn't smile or chatter, sits in the corner trying not to stare at nothing. Kurogane polishes Souhi the way he always does, then sets the pitcher out to cool. Tomorrow will be the last day.

***

They are restless all morning, but neither let it show. Kurogane thinks back on wanting to get home, looks forward to leaving, to starting up again. Fai remembers and feels himself unsure. He loves the children, he knows now – his heart had soared and filled and torn to see them; he loves his brother too, and all the dice are cast, and even if they weren't, he cannot stay behind and watch them leave. And, maybe, he could help along the way.

***

Noon passes quickly, and this day they do not go to practice; there is no point. They finish their remaining chores – in silence, they can hear it now. Meaningful pauses and short gestures suddenly fall too short, and for the first time in long months Fai feels mute, deaf, and trapped.

***

They adjust on the spot and fall into old patterns once the children find out it's really them. It is as much to pick up old, nearly forgotten ties, as to bridge the gap of a six-month silence. It feels familiar and rusty, but it's neither the time nor place to pause and think of it – Yasha's revealed for what he truly was, and the world in the sky fades from around them, broken to pieces for a wish that could not be.

They all return to travelling; and Kurogane is determined, purpose and drive renewed, and Fai feels his heart growing heavy, because the wheels are turning once again.

* * *

**AN**: Aaaaaand we're done. Finally. This fic has been the bane of my existence since August last year, and I've picked it up and put it down and picked it up again all this time (god, more than a year). It had the horrible luck of not being completed before my interest in TRC faded away, and still being in progress when uni started again, for which reasons the latter chapters a well below my usual standards. However, I hate leaving things dangling, and the idea of it would have nagged at me even years later - I figured some sort of ending is better than none. The feel and direction of these chapters were exactly what I'd planned in the first place, they're just much, much shorter/less elaborated than they would have been under normal circumstances. But hopefully, the gist of it comes through, and that's what's important.

Thank you to everyone who's born with me and followed my (lately) sporadic updates all this time, it may not have seemed so towards the end (what with a severe lack of free time and everything), but knowing that people were actually keeping track of it meant a lot. I hope you drew some small amount of satisfaction from reading this fic, and that, at the very least, it made you wonder about Fai and Kurogane's Yama-period as seen through the prism of their later-revealed backstories - that was the fic's purpose, after all. Again, many thanks!

**Oh, and a PS for this chapter**: if the ending feels rushed, it's not because I was fed up with the fic (though, in fact, I was), it's because I've always thought that the group reunion came in the middle of things, all of a sudden. It's too convenient to assume that the "process" of getting closer and becoming something, whatever it was, that Fai and Kurogane were going through in Yama would be allowed to come to a nicely-wrapped conclusion; the end of that period would most likely have been abrupt, out of the blue. Like this chapter :D


End file.
